


Sincerity is not my business

by frankenbolt



Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26034625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankenbolt/pseuds/frankenbolt
Summary: Sequel to "One Thing Leads Another". Takes place after the third chapter after Rick ends up at Vyvyan's apartment.Vyvyan doesn't quite know how to feel about Rick suddenly being back in his life, but at least he can make himself useful.
Relationships: Vyvyan Basterd/Rick (Young Ones)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Sincerity is not my business

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to an earlier fic of mine, "One Thing Leads to Another" but all you really need to know is that this is Post-Scumbag, Vyvyan is a junior doctor, and Rick is an activist for gay rights, circa 1987.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Vyvyan Basterd screws his eyes up against the harsh light of the bathroom in the middle of the night. Everything is faintly blurred around the edges as he finally regards himself in the mirror.

Orange had been swapped for blood red some time last year, but he knows that he’s been way too lax about keeping up with the regrowth. There’s an inch of blonde streaking upwards from his scalp. The hair hangs lank in his face, ungelled, tired eyes lined with dark shadows from too many night shifts.

The first thing Rick had remarked upon when he’d turned up on his doorstep two weeks ago, clutching a weirdly out of character briefcase and looking distractingly rumpled, was that he looked like a reject from The Banshees. 

“Big talk coming from you, Susie.” Rick had only sneered and pushed past him into the flat and back into his life.

It was enough of a reason to give the Pratt a welcoming punch to the stomach.

But for once, Rick was right. He needed to get his shit together.

Especially with Rick looking like…

Stomping into his living room, the punk thawps the former poet around the back of his head with a bottle of bleach. “Get up and help me with this.”

Rick cringes, looking up from the bundle of very boring papers he has spread out over Vyvyan’s coffee table (“It came with the place!” Vyvyan had muttered, avoiding Rick’s eyes when Rick first brought it up.) Vyvyan has been avoiding looking at him a lot lately. Everything about Rick sets his teeth on edge right now. He isn’t sure if it’s the fitted all black look that highlights how...unsettlingly fit he’s become. He isn’t sure if it’s the carefully sculpted shock of brown hair that effortly lifts away from his now flawless skin. He isn’t sure if it’s the single bar and silver ball piercing his left ear. He isn’t sure if it’s how Rick seems...different. More sure of himself. Secure. 

Whole.

Thankfully the petulant glare Rick fixes him with is achingly familiar. “Pwetty sure you know how to bleach your own hair, Vyvyan.” 

“Of course I fucking do.” Vyvyan grabs a chair from the little kitchenette and drags it in front of the former poet, kicking the coffee table to one side (grinning at the pathetic little tut of disapproval the other man gives at his carefully organised paperwork flying every which way). “But you need to learn how to earn your keep, you’ve been squatting in my flat for a week now. Now make yourself useful.”

Still grumbling over his papers, Rick stands and regards the bleach that’s been thrust into his hands. Vyvyan has to avoid looking at him again, as with a sigh, the other man starts rolling up the sleeves of his black button down shirt. 

“Have you got a pair of scissors? Might as well go the whole hog if we’re doing this.”

“Yeah, in the kitchen.”

Rick huffs, and strides to the kitchen. Vyvyan takes the opportunity to flop into the chair, kicking his boots up on the coffee table, knowing it’ll piss Rick off. He nearly jumps off the chair when he feels something spread across his shoulders, glaring as Rick titters. 

“It’s only a towel-”

“Whatever. Usually don’t bother.”

“I know. You messed up so many perfectly good shirts that way.” Rick fusses with the towel for a moment, tucking and smoothing it across Vyvyan’s shoulders, his hands warm through the threadbare material. 

Scoffing, “They made them more interesting.” Vyvyan tries to focus on a crack in the wall, ignoring the firm strokes of a comb (when did he get that?) parting his hair into sections. “Why are you bothering with all that? Just dump it on and smoosh it around!”

“Because that’s how you damage it, idiot.” Rick snaps. “Too much bleach and it’ll snap off and leave you with a slap head, is that what you want?” 

“When did you become the expert?” Vyvyan grumbles, letting Rick paw at his scalp. He’s being ruthlessly efficient at pulling the lank strands into place, like he’s done this a million times. “You only had that naff little green patch at Scumbag.”

Rick takes a moment to pull on a pair of pink marigolds that Vyvyan had left under the sink (he’d brought them for his more dangerous experiments- but work had left him with so little time to work with chemicals at home anymore). “A fwiend taught me when I was in Bwighton.” 

Vyvyan likes when his lisp slips back into his voice. When they talked on the phone, Vyvyan tired from a shift, Rick made a conscious effort to keep the speech impediment under control, like he was worried about someone over hearing him. When he’d come back to the flat a few days ago, Rick was hurriedly talking to someone on the phone in hushed but clipped and precise tones. He sounded like he was struggling to keep his new...persona in place. 

But when they were here, sniping back and forth, it was almost like he had his old roommate back. He was softer. An easy target.

More...Rick.

“Since when do you have friends?” Vyvyan’s eyes slip closed, as he feels the familiar burn of bleach against his hair.

There’s another pause, and shit, Vyvyan can feel the grin in Rick’s voice. “Caweful, I litewally have your head in my hands. I can easily mess this up so you look like the twat I know you are.”

“Do that and I’ll throw you out.”

Rick chuckles and calmly spreads the bleach through the doctor’s hair. “I didn’t think they let Doctors have punk hair.”

“They don’t.”

“Should have wealised that wouldn’t stop you.” 

There’s a certain amount of fondness that spreads through Rick’s voice that makes Vyvyan’s heart beat faster and he curses himself for it. 

There’s a beat and this would be the part where Vyvyan parries back with something to defuse the awkward realization that Rick said something disgustingly almost nice. But he doesn’t. Instead Vyvyan’s fingers tighten on the edges of his seat as he lets Rick spread the bleach into his roots and outwards.

He’s glad there isn’t a mirror in his living room. He’s glad he doesn’t have to see the blush he knows is pasted across his cheeks.

Sometime later and there’s a sudden lack of fingers in his hair, and there’s a snap of rubber as Rick tosses the gloves aside. Vyvyan feels like he’s hovering on the edge of something here, that this is the moment he should say something to his ex-roommate. Rick comes around the side of him, and shoots the punk an odd look before heading back into the kitchen to wash his hands.

“Get us a babycham?”

“Freezer right?” The call comes back. Vyvyan’s fingers tap agitated along the edge of the seat and he slumps down as he tries to gather his thoughts. 

“Yeah.”  
Rick returns with a glass of something for himself, and passes Vyvyan the small bottle, the cap already removed. Trying not to watch as Rick leans back on the sofa, long black clad legs crossing neatly over one another, regarding Vyvyan a little suspiciously. 

“You going to ask or not?” 

“Ask what?”

Rick scoffs. “Come off it, Vyv, you haven’t bothered asking why I’m here.”

Easily the comment rolls off the punk’s tongue. “Why the hell would I be in the slightest bit interested in what your spotty bottom is doing?”

Rolling his eyes theatrically, Rick leans forward and begins picking at the papers still scattered over the floor. “And here I thought you actually had grown up enough to have a decent adult conversation-”

Somewhere in a distant part of Vyvyan’s brain he feels himself yelling not to derail this but this is all so awkward and uncomfortable that the grin on his face appears before he can help it. “Oooer, an Adult conversation eh? So that’s why you’re here, you foul pervert?”

The look of hurt Rick shoots him isn’t like that pathetic little self-absorbed cry of defeat he would have back when they were teenagers. It’s full of shock and raw. Vyvyan immediately feels like he’s been punched in the gut by how badly he’s fucked up because it’s the same look Rick had when he turned up on his doorstep a week ago.

“You know what? Fuck you Vyvyan Basterd.” Rick throws himself upright and makes to turn away, clearly ready to leave again.

Can’t.

Not. He can’t leave-

Not again.

The chair Vyvyan had been sat on falls backwards as he rushes forwards to grasp Rick’s wrist.

“No- wait-”

Rick scoffs and tries to pull his wrist out of Vyvyan’s grip. “Just forget it-”

“I didn’t mean it.” Vyvyan’s voice cracks mid-way through the third word and he cringes. 

Looking back at the other man, Rick sighs, and manages to wrestle his wrist away. “You never bloody stop to think about what bollocks just fall out of your mouth.”

There’s a beat.

“You really are a poet, aren’t you?” Vyvyan can’t help it. He snorts with laughter.

Rick groans and rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes as he giggles helplessly. “Shut up.”

“Such a way with words, Master Pratt.” Vyvyan nudges Rick in the ribs.

“Fuck off!” Rick shoves him back, but there’s no malice in it. Vyvyan can feel the tension lifting as he shoves the other man back.

“It’s a wonder why you haven’t been made laureate with verse like that-”

The laughter is now freely pouring from Rick’s mouth, and they find themselves in that familiar situation of pushing and shoving, the two of them finally back on even ground. Rick can’t even manage to banter back, his face creased up, eyes squashed shut as he desperately continues giggling, and Vyvyan feels warm all over, seeing his Rick back, even as he’s playfully shoving him backwards over the sofa, slipping on the abandoned paper work on the ground and landing…

Squarely between Rick’s legs, face first.

There’s another long beat before Rick says, quite smugly.

“See? Bollocks in your mouth.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...A very wholesome fic on my part but after the filth that "One Thing Leads to Another" was, I figured I should even it out.
> 
> The song the title is based on, is, ironically enough, called "Everyone Comes to Rick's" by World Inferno Friendship Society


End file.
